Alberta election 2023

[Hatman 🍁]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Yes, it is tourism. Ski towns in North America are usually pretty left wing. Both Banff and Canmore are the nodes of NDP strength in the riding. When they called the riding for the UCP on election night, they didn't look at where the vote was coming from. Banff and Canmore hadn't come in yet.

[DL]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Yes, it is tourism. Ski towns in North America are usually pretty left wing. Both Banff and Canmore are the nodes of NDP strength in the riding. When they called the riding for the UCP on election night, they didn't look at where the vote was coming from. Banff and Canmore hadn't come in yet.

Its bit like how Democrats are becoming more competitive in some rural Colorado congressional districts that include places like Aspen and Vail.

[MaxQue]

Also, the real NDP majority in Banff should be above 199, unless you believe that the NDP 2% of the mobile vote and that the Solidarity Movement got 39% of the mobile vote.

[RFK 2024]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Yes, it is tourism. Ski towns in North America are usually pretty left wing. Both Banff and Canmore are the nodes of NDP strength in the riding. When they called the riding for the UCP on election night, they didn't look at where the vote was coming from. Banff and Canmore hadn't come in yet.

I've noticed recent election cycles in Canada developing more Americanized political and cultural trends, whether it's ski towns, Indigenous communities, or the rural/urban divide. This is especially prevalent in Alberta this cycle around.  The 2015 and 2019 election results were at least somewhat tied to the oil economy.  2023 seems to have had a much stronger culture war influence.  I also wonder how much of this is media influenced vs an amalgamation of cultures...  Since moving here I've noticed much of this part of the country has a very American feel not seen farther east in Ontario or Quebec.

[Benjamin Frank]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Yes, it is tourism. Ski towns in North America are usually pretty left wing. Both Banff and Canmore are the nodes of NDP strength in the riding. When they called the riding for the UCP on election night, they didn't look at where the vote was coming from. Banff and Canmore hadn't come in yet.

Jason Kenney trying to push through an open pit mine in or around the riding didn't help either.

[Hatman 🍁]

Also, the real NDP majority in Banff should be above 199, unless you believe that the NDP 2% of the mobile vote and that the Solidarity Movement got 39% of the mobile vote.

Ooh, hopefully they catch this if there's a recount. I remember finding some weird discrepancy in the last election that they eventually fixed too.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

True, but doing what's "healthy for democracy" isn't necessarily a good way of winning elections - see: Nixon's 50-state strategy in 1960, better yet compare that to his much more cynical, yet much more effective Southern Strategy in 1968. Resources spent in no-hope or surefire races are resources not spent in close but winnable ones. This effectively means ignoring the majority of voters while pandering non-stop to the decisive minority. And yes, that's quite unhealthy for democracy. But as a matter of political strategy, that's what works in elections as tight as this one.

But it's also that the electorate has become so polarized and sorted in general that gaps that once seemed bridgeable, or at least slopes that once seemed "smoothable", don't exist anymore.  Thus how a lot of what was within Tommy Douglas's Saskatchewan radar is now basically 80-20 Sask Party.

Nevertheless, I'm looking beyond the matter of "winning elections"--or at least winning *parliamentary* elections, as often the infrastructure of a decent if futile federal or provincial campaign can serve as prep for a not-so-futile local cause--t/w something a little more "dynamic", shall we say.  Sort of like what led Mike Harris in '95 to get meaningful upper-teens shares where the Tories had previously been mid-to-low-single-digit, or Jack Layton to earn back a deposit in all but 2 ridings in 2011.  All of which bespeaks a sort of stealth "50-state" approach to things...

That's a fair point. I think the difference here is that with the Harris PCs in 1995, Layton NDP in 2011, and even the Trudeau Liberals and Notley NDP in 2015, they had a few things going for them:

1. They were starting from way behind, so they didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing ridings
2. The political atmosphere was good for those parties to surge in support, to a greater extent than the AB NDP in 2023

When those factors are simultaneously present, you get wild across-the-board swings, rather than geographically concentrated ones. In 2015, the AB NDP didn't have a super obvious path to victory short of a provincewide surge, so they concentrated more resources in the kinds of places where there are enough left-accessible voters that a right-wing split puts them into play - the likes of Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, etc. Whereas in 2023, ther was a clear path to victory, which the NDP nearly got, and it mostly ran through Calgary and the Edmonton donut.

Edit: And I think the Trudeau Liberals are a very good example of how both of these strategies can be good depending on the context. In 2015, because those factors were present, you got broad swings that netted them some pretty far-fetched seats like Mission-Matsqui or Hastings-Lennox-Addington. In 2019 and 2021, Trudeau was more on the defense, the LPC wasn't particularly popular, but they had a path that involved holding just enough key seats in the GTA, Metro Van, and Quebec. And hence in the last two elections, LPC ran a more surgical electoral strategy that focused on getting as efficient a vote as they possibly could.

[Benjamin Frank]

True, but doing what's "healthy for democracy" isn't necessarily a good way of winning elections - see: Nixon's 50-state strategy in 1960, better yet compare that to his much more cynical, yet much more effective Southern Strategy in 1968. Resources spent in no-hope or surefire races are resources not spent in close but winnable ones. This effectively means ignoring the majority of voters while pandering non-stop to the decisive minority. And yes, that's quite unhealthy for democracy. But as a matter of political strategy, that's what works in elections as tight as this one.

But it's also that the electorate has become so polarized and sorted in general that gaps that once seemed bridgeable, or at least slopes that once seemed "smoothable", don't exist anymore.  Thus how a lot of what was within Tommy Douglas's Saskatchewan radar is now basically 80-20 Sask Party.

Nevertheless, I'm looking beyond the matter of "winning elections"--or at least winning *parliamentary* elections, as often the infrastructure of a decent if futile federal or provincial campaign can serve as prep for a not-so-futile local cause--t/w something a little more "dynamic", shall we say.  Sort of like what led Mike Harris in '95 to get meaningful upper-teens shares where the Tories had previously been mid-to-low-single-digit, or Jack Layton to earn back a deposit in all but 2 ridings in 2011.  All of which bespeaks a sort of stealth "50-state" approach to things...

That's a fair point. I think the difference here is that with the Harris PCs in 1995, Layton NDP in 2011, and even the Trudeau Liberals and Notley NDP in 2015, they had a few things going for them:

1. They were starting from way behind, so they didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing ridings
2. The political atmosphere was good for those parties to surge in support, to a greater extent than the AB NDP in 2023

When those factors are simultaneously present, you get wild across-the-board swings, rather than geographically concentrated ones. In 2015, the AB NDP didn't have a super obvious path to victory short of a provincewide surge, so they concentrated more resources in the kinds of places where there are enough left-accessible voters that a right-wing split puts them into play - the likes of Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, etc. Whereas in 2023, ther was a clear path to victory, which the NDP nearly got, and it mostly ran through Calgary and the Edmonton donut.

Edit: And I think the Trudeau Liberals are a very good example of how both of these strategies can be good depending on the context. In 2015, because those factors were present, you got broad swings that netted them some pretty far-fetched seats like Mission-Matsqui or Hastings-Lennox-Addington. In 2019 and 2021, Trudeau was more on the defense, the LPC wasn't particularly popular, but they had a path that involved holding just enough key seats in the GTA, Metro Van, and Quebec. And hence in the last two elections, LPC ran a more surgical electoral strategy that focused on getting as efficient a vote as they possibly could.

Not trying to be partisan here. It was Danielle Smith who said the UCP campaign would focus primarily away from the big cities, or some comment like that. This tweet is a reference to that.

https://twitter.com/davecournoyer/status/1663686371662499841?cxt=HHwWgsDQiZj8zJY...

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

True, but doing what's "healthy for democracy" isn't necessarily a good way of winning elections - see: Nixon's 50-state strategy in 1960, better yet compare that to his much more cynical, yet much more effective Southern Strategy in 1968. Resources spent in no-hope or surefire races are resources not spent in close but winnable ones. This effectively means ignoring the majority of voters while pandering non-stop to the decisive minority. And yes, that's quite unhealthy for democracy. But as a matter of political strategy, that's what works in elections as tight as this one.

But it's also that the electorate has become so polarized and sorted in general that gaps that once seemed bridgeable, or at least slopes that once seemed "smoothable", don't exist anymore.  Thus how a lot of what was within Tommy Douglas's Saskatchewan radar is now basically 80-20 Sask Party.

Nevertheless, I'm looking beyond the matter of "winning elections"--or at least winning *parliamentary* elections, as often the infrastructure of a decent if futile federal or provincial campaign can serve as prep for a not-so-futile local cause--t/w something a little more "dynamic", shall we say.  Sort of like what led Mike Harris in '95 to get meaningful upper-teens shares where the Tories had previously been mid-to-low-single-digit, or Jack Layton to earn back a deposit in all but 2 ridings in 2011.  All of which bespeaks a sort of stealth "50-state" approach to things...

That's a fair point. I think the difference here is that with the Harris PCs in 1995, Layton NDP in 2011, and even the Trudeau Liberals and Notley NDP in 2015, they had a few things going for them:

1. They were starting from way behind, so they didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing ridings
2. The political atmosphere was good for those parties to surge in support, to a greater extent than the AB NDP in 2023

When those factors are simultaneously present, you get wild across-the-board swings, rather than geographically concentrated ones. In 2015, the AB NDP didn't have a super obvious path to victory short of a provincewide surge, so they concentrated more resources in the kinds of places where there are enough left-accessible voters that a right-wing split puts them into play - the likes of Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, etc. Whereas in 2023, ther was a clear path to victory, which the NDP nearly got, and it mostly ran through Calgary and the Edmonton donut.

Edit: And I think the Trudeau Liberals are a very good example of how both of these strategies can be good depending on the context. In 2015, because those factors were present, you got broad swings that netted them some pretty far-fetched seats like Mission-Matsqui or Hastings-Lennox-Addington. In 2019 and 2021, Trudeau was more on the defense, the LPC wasn't particularly popular, but they had a path that involved holding just enough key seats in the GTA, Metro Van, and Quebec. And hence in the last two elections, LPC ran a more surgical electoral strategy that focused on getting as efficient a vote as they possibly could.

Not trying to be partisan here. It was Danielle Smith who said the UCP campaign would focus primarily away from the big cities, or some comment like that. This tweet is a reference to that.

https://twitter.com/davecournoyer/status/1663686371662499841?cxt=HHwWgsDQiZj8zJY...

Oh I don't deny that conservatives do the same. If anything, Harper was the king of microtargeting the right ridings and voting blocs to pull off just enough narrow wins - something that Trudeau co-opted in the last two elections pretty effectively. But ultimately it's a strategic decision, not an ideological one.

In Smith's case, she wasn't wrong as it turns out. The UCP has more safe seats in rural Alberta than the NDP does in Edmonton, so they could afford to concede half of Calgary and still pull ahead. It was a risky strategy, as it turned out, the slightest NDP boost in Calgary could have given the NDP a majority despite losing the popular vote pretty decisively. But it was probably the only viable strategy for the UCP, since Smith was never going to have the level of support in Calgary that Kenney did in 2019.

[Benjamin Frank]

True, but doing what's "healthy for democracy" isn't necessarily a good way of winning elections - see: Nixon's 50-state strategy in 1960, better yet compare that to his much more cynical, yet much more effective Southern Strategy in 1968. Resources spent in no-hope or surefire races are resources not spent in close but winnable ones. This effectively means ignoring the majority of voters while pandering non-stop to the decisive minority. And yes, that's quite unhealthy for democracy. But as a matter of political strategy, that's what works in elections as tight as this one.

But it's also that the electorate has become so polarized and sorted in general that gaps that once seemed bridgeable, or at least slopes that once seemed "smoothable", don't exist anymore.  Thus how a lot of what was within Tommy Douglas's Saskatchewan radar is now basically 80-20 Sask Party.

Nevertheless, I'm looking beyond the matter of "winning elections"--or at least winning *parliamentary* elections, as often the infrastructure of a decent if futile federal or provincial campaign can serve as prep for a not-so-futile local cause--t/w something a little more "dynamic", shall we say.  Sort of like what led Mike Harris in '95 to get meaningful upper-teens shares where the Tories had previously been mid-to-low-single-digit, or Jack Layton to earn back a deposit in all but 2 ridings in 2011.  All of which bespeaks a sort of stealth "50-state" approach to things...

That's a fair point. I think the difference here is that with the Harris PCs in 1995, Layton NDP in 2011, and even the Trudeau Liberals and Notley NDP in 2015, they had a few things going for them:

1. They were starting from way behind, so they didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing ridings
2. The political atmosphere was good for those parties to surge in support, to a greater extent than the AB NDP in 2023

When those factors are simultaneously present, you get wild across-the-board swings, rather than geographically concentrated ones. In 2015, the AB NDP didn't have a super obvious path to victory short of a provincewide surge, so they concentrated more resources in the kinds of places where there are enough left-accessible voters that a right-wing split puts them into play - the likes of Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, etc. Whereas in 2023, ther was a clear path to victory, which the NDP nearly got, and it mostly ran through Calgary and the Edmonton donut.

Edit: And I think the Trudeau Liberals are a very good example of how both of these strategies can be good depending on the context. In 2015, because those factors were present, you got broad swings that netted them some pretty far-fetched seats like Mission-Matsqui or Hastings-Lennox-Addington. In 2019 and 2021, Trudeau was more on the defense, the LPC wasn't particularly popular, but they had a path that involved holding just enough key seats in the GTA, Metro Van, and Quebec. And hence in the last two elections, LPC ran a more surgical electoral strategy that focused on getting as efficient a vote as they possibly could.

Not trying to be partisan here. It was Danielle Smith who said the UCP campaign would focus primarily away from the big cities, or some comment like that. This tweet is a reference to that.

https://twitter.com/davecournoyer/status/1663686371662499841?cxt=HHwWgsDQiZj8zJY...

Oh I don't deny that conservatives do the same. If anything, Harper was the king of microtargeting the right ridings and voting blocs to pull off just enough narrow wins - something that Trudeau co-opted in the last two elections pretty effectively. But ultimately it's a strategic decision, not an ideological one.

In Smith's case, she wasn't wrong as it turns out. The UCP has more safe seats in rural Alberta than the NDP does in Edmonton, so they could afford to concede half of Calgary and still pull ahead. It was a risky strategy, as it turned out, the slightest NDP boost in Calgary could have given the NDP a majority despite losing the popular vote pretty decisively. But it was probably the only viable strategy for the UCP, since Smith was never going to have the level of support in Calgary that Kenney did in 2019.

There were a couple ridings the U.C.P won by over 20% in 2019 in Calgary that they lost this time. I think the UCP could have tried to appeal more to Calgary without losing the more rural ridings.  And by that, I don't mean the purely rural ridings, of which there are only around 20, but the 'small city' ridings and the ridings with both urban and rural components - like all the ridings in the 'Edmonton donut' that the UCP won.

I think looking back to the previous closest 2 party seat winning election in Alberta in 1993 when the P.Cs under former Calgary mayor Ralph Klein defeated the Liberals under former Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore and then gained seats in the subsequent elections, Lorne Gunter and others on the right seem to be saying that this was the NDP's best shot to win back power.

I would caution that this could also go like B.C from 2013 to 2017 when Christy Clark so antagonized people in Greater Vancouver in order to play up her 'interior populism' that she ultimately lost in 2017. Danielle Smith had better make sure to not antagonize people in Calgary too much less the NDP virtually sweep the city in four years time.

FWIW, I believe the 1993 election is still the closest in terms of the popular vote with the P.Cs winning 43-39% over the Liberals.

[adma]

In Smith's case, she wasn't wrong as it turns out. The UCP has more safe seats in rural Alberta than the NDP does in Edmonton, so they could afford to concede half of Calgary and still pull ahead. It was a risky strategy, as it turned out, the slightest NDP boost in Calgary could have given the NDP a majority despite losing the popular vote pretty decisively. But it was probably the only viable strategy for the UCP, since Smith was never going to have the level of support in Calgary that Kenney did in 2019.

However, because of the particular kind of, er, "contentiousness" to Smith's leadership, the *scale* of a lot of those rural UCP wins have a way of conveying a more disconcerting abandon-hope-all-ye-who-enter-here message.  Plus, to put too many eggs in the raw winning-seats basket kind of skirts over the potential for a, I don't know, more *holistic*, best-instincts-geared approach to politics--maybe not unlike Jack Layton's "I know you may not vote for me, but I seek to earn your respect" approach that at least seeks to be a little less fish-out-of-water, more attuned to the salt-of-the-earth element that draws such voters to the political right (and Bernie Sanders struck a similar note in his '16 campaign).  Something that'd at least highlight the NDP as a meaningful voting alternative that transcends certain dogwhistles.  Otherwise by overemphasizing "winning", we might as well be headed for a US-style psephological he!! where, just as with a whole lot of "safe" US CDs and occasionally Senate seats, a lot of these ridings simply become acclamations or the only opponents are fringe...

[adma]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Yes, it is tourism. Ski towns in North America are usually pretty left wing. Both Banff and Canmore are the nodes of NDP strength in the riding. When they called the riding for the UCP on election night, they didn't look at where the vote was coming from. Banff and Canmore hadn't come in yet.

Its bit like how Democrats are becoming more competitive in some rural Colorado congressional districts that include places like Aspen and Vail.

Even more to the point, the way in which Park City and Jackson Hole and Sun Valley turn their component counties into anomalous hubs of blue in otherwise hyper-red Utah and Idaho and Wyoming.

You can even see that in federal results--in Banff-Airdrie at large in '21, the Cons at 56% had a 40-point margin over the NDP, but the NDP won Banff/Lake Louise and the Cons shook out to a sluggish mid-30s in Canmore.  (And at this point, one cannot rule out any long-term-potential "Calgary orbit" effect working on the NDP's behalf in Cochrane or Airdrie--not unlike that in Edmonton's satellites, albeit more so in '15 than now.)

And there's an excellent likelihood that an analogous Jasper effect (that is, Jasper polls among the first reporters) led to the NDP leading early tallies in West Yellowhead.  (But it's the rest of the riding that turned it into a 71-29 result instead.  Speaking of which: when was the last time that a Canadian parliamentary election, federal or provincial, had so many two-candidate contests?  I think there were...7 here?)

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

True, but doing what's "healthy for democracy" isn't necessarily a good way of winning elections - see: Nixon's 50-state strategy in 1960, better yet compare that to his much more cynical, yet much more effective Southern Strategy in 1968. Resources spent in no-hope or surefire races are resources not spent in close but winnable ones. This effectively means ignoring the majority of voters while pandering non-stop to the decisive minority. And yes, that's quite unhealthy for democracy. But as a matter of political strategy, that's what works in elections as tight as this one.

But it's also that the electorate has become so polarized and sorted in general that gaps that once seemed bridgeable, or at least slopes that once seemed "smoothable", don't exist anymore.  Thus how a lot of what was within Tommy Douglas's Saskatchewan radar is now basically 80-20 Sask Party.

Nevertheless, I'm looking beyond the matter of "winning elections"--or at least winning *parliamentary* elections, as often the infrastructure of a decent if futile federal or provincial campaign can serve as prep for a not-so-futile local cause--t/w something a little more "dynamic", shall we say.  Sort of like what led Mike Harris in '95 to get meaningful upper-teens shares where the Tories had previously been mid-to-low-single-digit, or Jack Layton to earn back a deposit in all but 2 ridings in 2011.  All of which bespeaks a sort of stealth "50-state" approach to things...

That's a fair point. I think the difference here is that with the Harris PCs in 1995, Layton NDP in 2011, and even the Trudeau Liberals and Notley NDP in 2015, they had a few things going for them:

1. They were starting from way behind, so they didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing ridings
2. The political atmosphere was good for those parties to surge in support, to a greater extent than the AB NDP in 2023

When those factors are simultaneously present, you get wild across-the-board swings, rather than geographically concentrated ones. In 2015, the AB NDP didn't have a super obvious path to victory short of a provincewide surge, so they concentrated more resources in the kinds of places where there are enough left-accessible voters that a right-wing split puts them into play - the likes of Red Deer, Medicine Hat, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, etc. Whereas in 2023, ther was a clear path to victory, which the NDP nearly got, and it mostly ran through Calgary and the Edmonton donut.

Edit: And I think the Trudeau Liberals are a very good example of how both of these strategies can be good depending on the context. In 2015, because those factors were present, you got broad swings that netted them some pretty far-fetched seats like Mission-Matsqui or Hastings-Lennox-Addington. In 2019 and 2021, Trudeau was more on the defense, the LPC wasn't particularly popular, but they had a path that involved holding just enough key seats in the GTA, Metro Van, and Quebec. And hence in the last two elections, LPC ran a more surgical electoral strategy that focused on getting as efficient a vote as they possibly could.

Not trying to be partisan here. It was Danielle Smith who said the UCP campaign would focus primarily away from the big cities, or some comment like that. This tweet is a reference to that.

https://twitter.com/davecournoyer/status/1663686371662499841?cxt=HHwWgsDQiZj8zJY...

Oh I don't deny that conservatives do the same. If anything, Harper was the king of microtargeting the right ridings and voting blocs to pull off just enough narrow wins - something that Trudeau co-opted in the last two elections pretty effectively. But ultimately it's a strategic decision, not an ideological one.

In Smith's case, she wasn't wrong as it turns out. The UCP has more safe seats in rural Alberta than the NDP does in Edmonton, so they could afford to concede half of Calgary and still pull ahead. It was a risky strategy, as it turned out, the slightest NDP boost in Calgary could have given the NDP a majority despite losing the popular vote pretty decisively. But it was probably the only viable strategy for the UCP, since Smith was never going to have the level of support in Calgary that Kenney did in 2019.

There were a couple ridings the U.C.P won by over 20% in 2019 in Calgary that they lost this time. I think the UCP could have tried to appeal more to Calgary without losing the more rural ridings.  And by that, I don't mean the purely rural ridings, of which there are only around 20, but the 'small city' ridings and the ridings with both urban and rural components - like all the ridings in the 'Edmonton donut' that the UCP won.

That's true, Smith could and should have tried harder. Because yes, there could be a 2017 Clark situation for her, where she pushes enough urban voters to the NDP that she loses the election outright.

My point is I'm not sure Smith could really have done much better in Calgary to any significant extent, because she's just fundamentally not a good leader to have in a predominantly urban province, even one where the biggest urban area remains pretty conservative. At least with Clark's rightward shift of the BC Liberals in 2013, while it lost her parts of urban BC (like her own seat in Vancouver), it also helped the BC Liberals in parts of rural BC that the NDP held. But the UCP doesn't have any rural NDP ridings to pick up - except Banff-Kananaskis now, which doesn't vote like the rest of rural Alberta.

[Cassius]

Why is Calgary so much more conservative than Edmonton, relatively speaking (from the perspective of a complete layman)?

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/LyleGreg/status/1664790924919025665

[Benjamin Frank]

Why is Calgary so much more conservative than Edmonton, relatively speaking (from the perspective of a complete layman)?

I don't know if there are other explanations but, especially the suburbs of Calgary and Southern Calgary which is referred to as suburban, are more conservative than suburbs elsewhere in Canada.

I suspect it's mostly related to the perception of being fossil fuel or resource dependent and all that goes with that, like global warming denialism and identifying your interests as the same as corporate interests (i.e 'the business of America is business.')  As I've said here on other threads, when a polity perceives that it's dominated by one sector, and even goes so far as to identify their way of life with their work in that sector, it tends to lead to people identifying/sympathizing with their leading corporations.

The full quote from GM President Charles Wilson in 1953, for instance:
"I cannot conceive of one (a conflict of interest) because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country. Our contribution to the Nation is quite considerable."

Which was shortened but the menaing not really altered to 'what's good for G.M is good for America.'

I don't think this is just tied to resource industries or even resource and manufacturing because California for instance seems to be dominated by high tech concerns.

However, to the original point, Australian economist Richard Denniss has written about this in regards to Australia and mining, and former provincial Alberta Liberal Party leader Kevin Taft wrote a book about it called "Oil’s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming -- in Alberta, and in Ottawa"

Edmonton is less likely to feel these pressures due to it having more government jobs.

[Lord Halifax]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Tourism seems like the obvious answer. Banff itself is all about tourism and B-K includes all of Banff National Park, and there are several ski resorts. The constituency also has two native reserves with a combined population of a little over 6k, that's 1/8 of the total population in the constituency.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Tourism seems like the obvious answer. Banff itself is all about tourism and B-K includes all of Banff National Park, and there are several ski resorts. The constituency also has two native reserves with a combined population of a little over 6k, that's 1/8 of the total population in the constituency.

Funnily enough, Banff-Kananaskis saw the UCP candidate give a victory speech before the vote tallies changed and she learned she was unseated.
https://www.rmoutlook.com/banff/ndps-elmeligi-takes-banff-kananaskis-riding-by-fewer-than-200-votes-7069660

[adma]

The NDP did win one rural seat - Banff-Kananaskis. I'd like to see an analysis of that win. Often when the NDP does win rural seats in the west its ones in the far north that are heavily Indigenous - but that does not seem to be the case with Banff. I wonder if its more dependent on tourism and therefore votes more like an NDP seat on Vancouver island or in the Kootenays?

Tourism seems like the obvious answer. Banff itself is all about tourism and B-K includes all of Banff National Park, and there are several ski resorts. The constituency also has two native reserves with a combined population of a little over 6k, that's 1/8 of the total population in the constituency.

It not only *seems* like it; if you examine past federal and provincial poll-by-poll results, it rather palpably, obviously *is* the answer.

[DL]

I wonder if the NDP won the Jasper polls in Yellowhead

[Estrella]

I wonder if the NDP won the Jasper polls in Yellowhead

For sure, and probably crushed it too. In 2021 they got just 11% in the federal riding, but the Jasper polls voted something like 40–50% NDP, 20–30% Liberal and 20% Tory.

[adma]

I wonder if the NDP won the Jasper polls in Yellowhead

For sure, and probably crushed it too. In 2021 they got just 11% in the federal riding, but the Jasper polls voted something like 40–50% NDP, 20–30% Liberal and 20% Tory.

On top of that, the early televised totals for West Yellowhead showed the NDP in the lead on not-just-marginal numbers, which given the kind of seat it is could only mean one thing: Jasper.  (Or if it *wasn't* Jasper, you could be sure that if those polls came from somewhere else other than reserves, Jasper would be even *better*.)

[MaxQue]

I wonder if the NDP won the Jasper polls in Yellowhead

The only election day poll the NDP won was in Jasper and they got 78% in it.

[mileslunn]

On Calgary being more conservative, I think it is more economy.  Edmonton more a government town and service based economy while Calgary has a lot of headquarters of companies in energy sector and is just more pro-business.  Still Calgary I would say is more your traditional pro free market, fiscally conservative city, not your right wing populist which is why it went solidly for Kenney but Smith narrowly lost it.

[CelestialAlchemy]

How'd the election go in the Mormon-heavy areas in Southern Alberta? Cardston, and neighboring settlements.